DiNapoli rips Roosevelt Island Corp. for wasteful spending

They’re living it up on Roosevelt Island — at taxpayers’ expense.

A scathing state audit found that executives and employees who manage the island community in the East River blew $ 88,000 on questionable expenses from 2010 through 2012 — including a trip to the Netherlands, $ 4,143 for promotional items such as magnet squares, movie banners and table throws, and $ 27,420 to supply food for parties.

Employees also used corporate credit cards for personal purchases at iTunes, Best Buy and Enterprise car rental, the audit found.

Another $ 3,638 went towards six high-definition TVs.

Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said no one seemed to be watching the bottom line at the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp. , a public-benefit corporation created by the state in 1984.

There was seemingly no purchase — no matter how bizarre — that raised red flags.

RIOC paid $ 14,560 for three sessions of “customer service” training and $ 12,000 for 11 sessions of “horticulture” training. There were no documents to justify the expenditures.

Auditors were perplexed as to why RIOC paid to send an outside contractor’s employees to customer training.

The audit found RIOC paid $ 3,175 for an employee to obtain a management certification through a training course required for promotion.

But the audit found the employee did not attend the course.

Free travel proved a lure too hard to resist, whether necessary or not. RIOC could not justify 17 payments for travel totaling $ 5,612.

It paid for three workers to attend a conference in the Netherlands. Two of them made an unspecified presentation.

“RIOC officials could not support why the third employee went to the conference at a cost of $ 2,279,” the audit said.

“RIOC also paid $ 355 for the two employees who made the presentation and extended their stay beyond the conference dates. The two employees did not reimburse RIOC for these additional costs,” the analysis concluded.

Moreover, the audit said RIOC circumvented competitive bidding by paying a contractor $ 16,219 for media and public relations services. RIOC twice extended an emergency contract and then issued “a backdated contract to cover the services.”

In response to the stinging audit, RIOC CEO Charlene Indelicato said the agency overhauled its procedures to better manage discretionary spending.

All travel requests in the future will require detailed documentation to justify trips, she said.

“In addition, RIOC restricted credit card purchases by eliminating credit cards previously issued to department heads and maintaining only one corporate credit card under the central control of executive management,” she said.

The RIOC also implemented a bar-code system to better track the whereabouts and use of equipment purchases like TVs.

Indelicato did not say if any employees were disciplined as a result of the audit.

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